Re: [xmca] those pesky emotions, are they adjectives? - was ZPD in a new light

[David Kellogg <vaughndogblack@yahoo.com>]

First of all, I want to complain a little about the change of subject line. I don't think it reflects the content of the thread, and I also don't think the answer matters.
 
Secondly, I accept BOTH of Ana's examples (the transformation of Pidgins into Creoles and the change from a purely indicative meaning of 'fu' to an operational one) as development. In fact, I wrote about that in response to Wolff-Michael's editorial on 'Sabir' in my comment 'Taking Uptaking Up" in MCA a year ago. But they are both sociogenetic and not ontogenetic developments. Transposed to ontogenetic ground (e.g. taught to children) they are both 'vertical' in exactly the sense that Vygotsky meant when he spoke of 'being a head taller'; they provide the child with a more idealized, more abstract, more generalized, and at the same time more specific way of doing things, because when a system of communication is more ideal, more abstract,more general it just contains more stuff, and handles more data and ultimately confers more reality.
 
Thirdly--I  promised to bring some highlights from our discussion here in Korea. Here's one for starters:
 
"It seems to me that Socratic dialogue does not exclude magistral dialogue just as freedom does not exclude regulation. In the same way that freedom cannot be taught by forcing the students to be free, the discussion "guided by an openness to the emerging truth of the given subject matter" cannot happen through simply putting out "adults's preposessed knowledge." However, as this formulation implies, having a set framework for the matter under discussion is one thing and putting presupposed knowledge into the pupils is another". 
 
"I think having a broad sense of a task and a means of guiding the activity is a very important role for adults and it is why Lindqvist suggests that adults participate the child's play (e.g helping children create story with plots). The teacher in this article drew two categories of child's opinion (i.e.allowing created characters or only using characters in the book) and gave them the chance to defend their own positions. He physically divided the class in two so that children could better feel the situation but did not suggest his own opinion in between the positions." 
 
"I think the teacher is not only logically oriented. My feeling is that without the teachers framing of the situation, Pearl's 'new idea' could not have emerged. The (visual) division of classroom, the long-lasting discussion which does not actually develop and even collapses (as often happens in children's own play), made Pearl's uncomfortable feeling grow and the teacher does feel this.".
 
"However, I rather doubt whether Pearl's suggestion is dialectical one. If children failed to assimilate how the other side think (data shows this is the case especially when Pearl says 'this is our play so we can do what we want to do' and insists not introducing new character.) there's no way of sublation. Pearl wants her opinion accepted and at the same time she felt the divided atmosphere was uncomfortable but the problem is that she has no way of logically persuading the other group or even her own side(It's almost Pearl herself speaking for the group)."
 
"Overall, Pearl's emotion overwhelms and her solution is also egocentric; play my way first and then do i your way. I think the reason her solution is accepted was due to the teacher's strong engagement (or even forcing the children to accept it showing his excitation) not because 'everyone is Pearl's best friend and Pearl is everyone's best friend' although that is the way it is put. In fact there is no real emotional way for this to happen and it contains an inherent logical contradiction. I think Pearl's 'we' and 'everyone' is not the same 'we' and 'everyone' of teacher."
 
"I have no intention to blame Pearl at all (my little daughter is often like Pearl or even more egocentric) but the way the data is analysed bothers me; particularily the nuance of criticising the teacher. It also focuses not on the right target of play stages. My feeling is that even though play preparation is very important it is too much similar to other negotiation activity; the roles are rather abstract (pros and cons) and there's little room for fantasy and creation(as Nancy often reiterate teacher's utterance and most of the students feel relieved about it). the real Socratic or unexpected new products can happen in the process of play itself when children do it their 'own' way." 
 
"If I was the teacher, my suggestion would have been same as Pearl's but for different reasons; Freedom can only grow from perfect internalization of the rules. Perfect engagement leads to most stunning creation, as Bakhtin's theory about asthetic experience implies."
 
David Kellogg and Friends
Seoul National University of Education 





--- On Sun, 2/14/10, Ana Marjanovic-Shane <ana@zmajcenter.org> wrote:


From: Ana Marjanovic-Shane <ana@zmajcenter.org>
Subject: Re: [xmca] those pesky emotions, are they adjectives? - was ZPD in a new light
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Date: Sunday, February 14, 2010, 11:54 AM


Hi Larry, David, Mike, Colin and all,

The horizontal-vertical spatial metaphors of the Zone of Proximal Development (or Proximal Zone of Development) are are interesting to think about in many ways. I agree with David that one cannot "flatten" this concept from a, let say, cube, to a mere square. And I don't think that this was an intention in any way of the authors of the paper. I actually thought that their intention was exactly the opposite. 
Let me create another metaphor to explore the dimensions of the ZPD - a metaphor of a key and a lock. I think that we are interested in the way that key moves forward into the lock to unlock it (our vertical dimension of the ZPD). But at the same time, we need to also explore all the circular and searching movements (and e-motions) that the key goes through (horizontal dimension of the ZPD) on its way find the right angle to click in and be able to move forward. This is actually a very simplistic metaphor, because I think that the ZPD is simultaneously also a process of constructing of both the key and the lock together until (and if) they actually click into opening new vistas from which learning becomes qualitatively different (i.e. development). 
In addition, these movements are never only "vertical" even when they lead to a novel and culturally described as "higher" type of conceptual thinking. Sometimes the less experienced, young members of the species have an advantage of discovery of a new understanding and a new meaning. It is known, for instance that creation of new languages from Pidgin to Creole, and a whole lot of new concepts that are created in this process, for instance, is the undertaking of the younger new generations. (Sankoff & Laberge, (1984), On the Acquisition of Native SPeakers by a Language, in Baugh, J & Sherzer (Eds), Language in Use, Readings in Sociolinguistics), A similar trend that newer generations (younger people) actually create novel concepts that can change the culture has been studied in Saxe, G.B. & Esmonde, I., (2005), Studying Cognition in Flux: A Historical Treatment of Fu in the Shifting Structure of Oksapmin Mathematics, MCA, 12(3&4).
So I think that there are more dimensions that need to be taken into account when studying the processes in the very core of learning and development. Interpersonal relationships -- we agreed, in all their emotional back-and-forths, are the "location" of these processes. But the trajectory of learning is not straight. It depends on the tensions and over-coming emotions (perezhivanies), the relationships created in that process, and especially interpretations of interpersonal acts (postupaks) that empower or disempower the participants. Besides having a direction (is it only vertical?), ZPD also has a "thickness" in terms of many psychological and social strands that that are connected, twisted, looped and crossing and re-crossing each other. I think that the innovation in the Ferholt&Lecusay study is in their looking at the "context" i.e. the interaction between the adult and the children and the transformation of the interpersonal relationship that
 enables (or prevents) the key to click into the lock which will unlock new potentials for development.

What do you think?

Ana


__________________________
Dr. Ana Marjanovic-Shane
Assistant Professor of Education
Chestnut Hill College
e-mails:  Marjanovic-ShaneA@chc.edu
                 ana@zmajcenter.org
Phone:    267-334-2905
Chestnut Hill College…celebrating 85 years of tradition and risk





On Feb 14, 2010, at 1:21 PM, Larry Purss wrote:

> Colin, David, Mike, Ana, and others
> 
> Thanks for the ongoing CHAT on this topic about pesky emotions. I will try to respond to some of the threads being put forth on this topic.
> Colin, I can support your suggestion that we be aware that emotions are not nouns or essentialized entities that are separate and distinct from other aspects of being human.  What I believe is central is the notion of the RELATIONAL and therefore my suggestion of examining the variables that should be considered in relational descriptions (and possible explanations) of this relational matrix.  In this view would the notion of "figure and ground" be an acceptable account of exploring the relational matrix?  For some practical (or theoretical ) purposes some aspects of the relational matrix could be considered figure but in other accounts those same aspects could be considered ground.  From this perspective though descriptions must consider BOTH figure and ground.  Therefore experience could for heuristic reasons in some accounts privilege one or another aspect of the relational matrix. 
> 
> Back to emotions in the consideration of figure and ground.
> Emotional experience (as a heuristic not an essentialized entity) can be calm or full of tension.  What interests me is the emotional experiences that MOVE us (e-motion) and have an ANTICIPATORY quality and TENSION (within a relational matrix).  There are some Discourse traditions that put this MOVEMENT as figure in their accounts of being human.  Therefore in this months article we can have an account of the transformation from the magisterial voice to the socratic voice that (for heuristic reasons) puts this E-motion-al experience in the foreground.  Colin, I do work in schools and in the role of a counsellor and therefore in this role I find it helpful to pay attention to the emotional experiences that move us in a relational matrix.
> 
> David,
> Thank you for your clarifications of the historical background of the meaning of "the" zone of proximal development" and how the meaning has shifted in current accounts and is in danger of loosing its original meaning as we talk heuristically about the Zo-ped.  In my earlier response to the posted article I was going along with the notion of Zo-ped and generalizing beyond its original meaning. I will try to refrain from using the construct of the Zo-ped unless as a community of inquirers we together want to construct a more generalized account. However, even within the more specific notions that David has articulated we can still ask where to locate emotional experience as TENSION which MOVES us to vertical development in "higher" mental functioning. Also the question of the relation of these higher functions to the earlier functions need clarification. Bowlby's attachment theory (which was constructed in the Discourse of "nature") gestures or points
 to phenomena that  describes TENSION and MOVEMENT and ANTICIPATION in a relational matrix and these powerful forces are implicated in development.
> 
> Mike,
> As my previous comments suggest, the parent-infant relational matrix is always semiotic and the mother as an adult immerses the infant in a sociocultural world even before birth. However, as you mention this (m)other-infant relational matrix is possibly formative of later patterns of development and learning. It is a fascinating topic and the question of whether it is first, second, or third in priority may be the wrong question. Using figure-ground metaphors suggests we can privilege emotional experience for some accounts as being helpful in understanding sociality for being human and in other accounts privilege activity, language, etc. Each of these constructs can be foregrounded and the dialogical interweaving of the various accounts creates a tapestry.
> 
> Ana,
> Your question that opened this discussion, about the possible extension of the ZPD to the expanded notion of the Zo-ped is still a central question for exploring the relational matrix. If we are to agree with David's account of the ZPD as talking ONLY about VERTICAL development, then the question of horizontal "development" or "learning" is still a central debate.  The notion of "crossing borders" and engaging with ALTERITY (the other) can either be foreground or background but is fundamental to the relational matrix. In theorizing about the relational matrix I believe for heuristic reasons we should articulate "spacial metaphors" as "places" in which to give accounts of the relational matrix. Relational psychoanalysis is using the notion of "opening spaces" for the emergence of novelty as a possible generalized term for this metaphorical place.
> 
> In summary, in my account the relational matrix and terms such as BETWEEN and WITHIN are central notions. I am currently reading chapters from the Handbook of Sociocultural Psychology and the various accounts in this edited book seem to be elaborating this relational matrix.
> Larry
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: C Barker <C.Barker@mmu.ac.uk>
> Date: Saturday, February 13, 2010 5:18 pm
> Subject: [xmca] those pesky emotions, are they adjectives? - was ZPD in a new light
> To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> 
>> I wonder if I might throw in my own two pennyworth on 
>> thequestion of sharing emotions and indeed on emotions (or ‘the 
>> emotional’)generally.
>> 
>> There’s seemingly a strong tendency to think aboutemotions as if 
>> they can discussed separately from other aspects of
>> action,activity, sociality, etc. Associated with this is a 
>> further tendency, which isonly to notice ‘emotions’ (or ‘the
>> emotional’) when it *changes* from one stateto another. We tend 
>> to think of ‘emotions’ as if they are, as it were,
>> ‘things’(with, in grammatical terms, ‘noun status’) and to think 
>> of them, moreover, asif they only happen *sometimes*.
>> 
>> If I understand his approach correctly, this was notVygotsky’s 
>> view. He focused on ‘inter-functional relations’, in which each
>> aspectof consciousness was seen as inter-dependent with the 
>> others – whether it becognition, emotion, memory, attention, 
>> etc. His
>> position would lead him toagree with Theodor Sarbin (1986) in 
>> his opposition to a ‘faculty psychology’, inwhich different aspects
>> of consciousness and action are treated apart from eachother.
>> 
>> What we shouldn’t think is that there are ‘emotional’ and‘non-
>> emotional’ forms of action, including speech. For ‘calm’ action or
>> speech isas much emotional as that which is fearful or angry or 
>> distressed. All of humanexperience has an ‘emotional’ quality,
>> just as (Vološinov) every word is spokenwith an ‘evaluative accent’.
>> 
>> I wonder about the translation of that Russian term – 
>> perezhivanie– which was apparently the focus of the later Vygotsky’s
>> attention, and which seems to be translated as 
>> ‘emotionalexperience’ (for example in the essay ‘The problem of 
>> the environment’ in
>> vander Veer & Valsiner 1994). I don’t know Russian, but why is 
>> the word ‘emotional’put before ‘experience’ here? If we just
>> translated Vygotsky’s word as ‘experience’would it make any 
>> difference – provided that we remembered that there is noexperience
>> which doesn’t have its ‘emotional accent’?
>> 
>> There are, to besure, *some* experiences which have the quality 
>> of  ‘dramatic collision’, as Nikolai Veresov veryinterestingly
>> suggests Vygotsky has in mind when discussing what sets people 
>> offinto potentially ‘changing their minds’ about something. They
>> certainly have an‘emotional’ quality, but so too do ‘undramatic’ 
>> experiences: e.g. the bus iscoming, I put out my hand, it stops,
>> I get on, I pay my fare, I take a seat - ateach step, there are 
>> tiny quivers we hardly notice in all the ‘normality’, andthere is
>> little ‘development’ here. Just microscopic active testings of 
>> the world,which on this occasion turns out to meet our learned
>> expectations, butnonetheless involve our active pursuit of our 
>> goals and motives.
>> 
>> Suppose wetreated ‘the emotional’ as an inherent quality of all 
>> human action, and ingrammatical terms only used the emotional
>> *adjectivally or adverbially*, todescribe one of its qualities…. 
>> Would we lose anything? (Or perhaps we wouldn’tgain anything
>> either?)
>> 
>> The advantage ofthus insisting on the ‘grammatical’ status of 
>> the emotional might be that it wouldtake away the temptation, found
>> in some accounts of the emotional, to try toform *lists* of 
>> emotions, or to try to explain complex human activities interms 
>> of the
>> interplay of a few ‘emotions’.
>> 
>> I write this asone whose main interests lie not in the study of 
>> schooling or workplacerelations, but rather in ‘social movements’.
>> In this field, to which I alwaysfeel that CHAT could contribute 
>> quite a lot if there were more possibleintersections, the
>> temptation I described in the previous paragraph is aliveand all 
>> too well. ‘Shame,’ Fear’, Anger’ and a few more ‘powerful
>> emotions’ areoften allotted powerful degrees of causal 
>> influence. Their ‘noun status’ isvery strong here, along with a very
>> mono-causal style of analysis.
>> 
>> If we stuck totreating the emotional as adjectival or adverbial, 
>> we could include a widerrange of emotional expression in the way
>> we talk about human interaction thanwe probably could if we 
>> insisted that emotions are ‘nouns’. Consider thefollowing sentence:
>> ‘He raised his eyebrows suggestively; she smiled backarchly.’ 
>> There are emotional qualities being described in these non-verbal
>> ‘utterances’,but would our understanding be enriched if we tried 
>> to define emotions called ‘suggestiveness’or ‘archness’?
>> 
>> I don’t evenknow if any of this will make sense to any of you 
>> xmca-ers, or even if anyonewill think there is anything worth
>> further consideration, but I’ll be interestedto read any responses.
>> 
>> I have tried tospell out the ideas here slightly more 
>> extensively in a couple of papersdiscussing the emotional 
>> quality of some
>> developments within the Polish ‘Solidarity’movement in1980 and 
>> 1981 (along with much else about that movement, whose
>> 30thanniversary occurs this summer). One of these appeared in 
>> 2001, in a bookcalled Passionate Politics, and the other is due to
>> appear in 2010 in aweb-based journal called Interface. They can 
>> be accessed at http://sites.google.com/site/colinbarkersite/along
>> with several efforts at exploring CHAT and social movements.
>> 
>> Colin Barker
>> 
>> *
>> 
>> Hi Mike
>> I also am unsure about the genesis of the sharing of emotion as 
>> the CORE of theemotional bond.  However Fonagy's  
>> account (and the
>> tradition heworks within) does gesture or point in the direction 
>> of shared emotion ascentral to human sociality.  If 
>> sociality is
>> central to the developmentalprocess (in both its vertical and 
>> horizontal dimensions) as seems likely inmany different accounts
>> elaborated on CHAT then processes which are central tosociality 
>> become central issues to elaborate.
>> Theory of Mind has elaborated the centrality of intentionality 
>> to ourunderstanding sociality.  Sociocultural theory has 
>> elaboratedthecentrality of triadic communication (including 
>> objects and artifacts) tosociality.  The linguistic turn, 
>> dialogical theory,
>> semiotics, havedocumented the centrality of  language, 
>> speech acts, and narrative(Bruner) to the creation of sociality.
>> All these Discourses are pointing in the direction of 
>> communication andlanguage as central to sociality.  
>> The metaphors of "places" locations" "spaces"" Zo-ped's" 
>> "contexts" speaks to our being SITUATED ascentral to sociality. 
>> History and the temporal dimension of sociality is also a 
>> central analytic unitof sociality.
>> However, how we account for emotions within sociality seems to 
>> vary acrossthese other accounts of sociality.  Often 
>> emotions are
>> seen as a"by-product" of these other processes and accounts of 
>> sociality.Therefore, I believe the place of emotion in our accounts
>> is often on theperiphery of our perspectives rather than having 
>> a central place in sociality.Fonagy and others who are exploring
>> the genesis of  the sharing of emotionare bringing emotions 
>> onto center stage of the human sciences. I believe sincewe experience
>> emotions as intrapsychic phenomena they are often viewed 
>> asvalidating an encapsulated view of the person when a social 
>> account of
>> theperson is being elaborated that puts sociality at the center 
>> of our accounts.
>> If scholars such as Fonagy, Stern, Scheff, etc. are successful 
>> in re-directingour gaze towards emotion as a central to our
>> accounts of sociality then theyhave contributed to the ongoing 
>> fallible accounts in the community ofinquirers.
>> My reading of the Zo-ped in the posted article was influenced by 
>> the emotionalclimate when the children shifted from a magisterial
>> to a socratic style ofdialogue.  The transformation in 
>> their communication experience was also atransformation in their 
>> emotionsand in the transformation of the Zo-ped.
>> Larry
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> I have been reading moll/tomasello et al, Larry, and will 
>> check the
>>> Fonagy/Sharp ref. Thanks. But I am
>>> still uncertain about the genesis of the sharing of emotion, 
>> the 
>>> core of the
>>> emotional bond that appears by
>>> this account to be central to hu> central, so
>>> will keep at it.
>>> mike
>>> 
>>> On Tue, Feb 9, 2010 at 9:06 PM, Larry Purss  wrote:
>>> 
>>>> Hi Ana
>>>> I wanted to thank you for sharing your thoughts on the Zo-
>> ped 
>>> and its
>>>> possible elaboration in the Ferholt and Lecusay article. I 
>>> also sense that
>>>> the zo-ped as a metaphor of a "zone" or "space"can be 
>>> elaborated to capture
>>>> the transformations in interpersonal and epistemological 
>>> issues built
>>>> jointly in practices.  The article elaborates the zone 
>> as 
>>> a "location" in
>>>> which all the participants "cross borders" and ALL 
>>> participants are
>>>> transformed from the joint activity.  The article also 
>>> speaks to
>>>> communicative activity as having the potential to be 
>>> SYMMETRICAL or
>>>> ASYMMETRICAL and that the quality of communication is 
>>> different depending on
>>>> the symmetrical or asymmetrical quality of "recognition" 
>>> (power).  And
>>>> finally the article elaborates the centrality of emotion (e-
>>> MOTION) within
>>>> the Zo-ped. These 3 variables do point to the need to deepen 
>>> the analysis of
>>>> this "zone" as functioning at an ontological level oftheory 
>>> elaboration.> It is for this reason I want to bring in other 
>>> Discourses which are looking
>>>> at the notion of "shared space" as foundational to our 
>>> exploration of our
>>>> being human.
>>>> Peter Fonagy and Carla Sharp In the Journal "Social 
>>> Development, (17, 3,
>>>> 2008) are also discussing the centrality of shared space in their
>>>> developmental model. Sharp and Fonagy in this article are 
>>> reviewing various
>>>> notions of the construct of the "meeting of minds"Following 
>>> is a review of
>>>> their perspective.
>>>> They review Tomasello, Carpenter, Call, Behne, and Moll's 
>>> position on the
>>>> meeting of minds as SHARED or WE intentionality. Tomasello 
>> et 
>>> al suggest
>>>> that only humans are biologically adapted for participating 
>> in 
>>> collaborative> activities and shared goals (joint 
>>> intentions)  However, in addition to the
>>>> capacity to UNDERSTAND goals, intentions, and perceptions 
>> (the 
>>> theory of
>>>> mind construct) a "meeting of minds" adds the MOTIVATION to
>>> SHARE these ToM
>>>> understandings in INTERACTION WITH OTHERS. Tomasello 
>>> emphasizes that at the
>>>> foundation of this meeting of minds is the MOTIVATION to 
>> SHARE 
>>> EMOTIONS with
>>>> others. It is the motivation to share EMOTIONAL STATES with 
>>> others that
>>>> distinguishes us from apes, who are unable to share these 
>>> PSYCHOLOGICAL> states with one another. Tomasello et al 
>> conclude 
>>> that as humans we are
>>>> hardwired to want to be part of a WE. As a species this enables
>>>> collaboration, which is necessary for survival.
>>>> Sharp and Fonagy in their attempt to operationalize the 
>>> mechanisms which
>>>> facilitate a meeting of minds are exploring its ontology in the
>>>> species-specific social interactions in the early parent-infant
>>>> relationship.
>>>> Sharp and Fonagy add to Tomasello's insights (the capacity 
>> to 
>>> UNDERSTAND> intentions and the MOTIVATION to SHARE 
>> PSYCHOLOGICAL 
>>> states) by reviewing
>>>> Gergely and Csibra's perspective on the meeting of minds. 
>>> Gergely suggests
>>>> an ABILITY TO COMMUNICATE relevant information is a third 
>>> prerequisite for
>>>> negotiating and co-ordinating all levels of JOINT 
>>> COLLABORATIVE ACTIVITIES
>>>> by communicating relevant information. This LEARNING 
>> mechanism 
>>> ensures the
>>>> transmission of knowledge by making the latter MANIFEST or 
>>> MARKED to the
>>>> observer. The emergence of this communicative capacity for 
>>> human pedagogy
>>>> leads to shared intentionality and the meeting of minds. 
>> Sharp 
>>> and Fonagy
>>>> summarize there thoughts on the meeting of minds by stating
>>>> "Therefore, while Tomasello and colleagues view the meeting 
>> of 
>>> minds as a
>>>> mere by-product of a species-specific MOTIVATION to co-
>> operate 
>>> and share
>>>> mental states with each other Gergely and colleagues explain 
>>> it by appealing
>>>> to a species-unique capacity for cultural learning through 
>> the 
>>> communication> of relevant knowledge" (p.749)
>>>> This summary of various perspectives of the co> speaks to the
>>>> centrality of understanding intentionality, the motivation 
>> (e-
>>> motion) to
>>>> share psychological states, and the human impulse for 
>> pedagogy 
>>> in the
>>>> forming of ZONES or SPACES of WE PARTICIPATION. Ferholt and 
>>> Lecusay's> article invited multiple perspectives on the 
>>> construct of the Zo-ped and I
>>>> believe the notion of "meeting of minds" speaks to the same
>>> phenomena as the
>>>> constructs of "interillumination" in the Ferholt andLecusay 
>>> article, the
>>>> construct of  "intersubjectivity" as elaborated by D. 
>>> Stern and Bahktin's
>>>> construct of"dialogical voices" try to elaborate.  They
>>> all speak to the
>>>> notion of a WE intentionality and shared consciousness from 
>>> which emerges a
>>>> sense of agency vitality, and pleasure (as Ferholt and 
>> Lecusay 
>>> capture at
>>>> the end of the article as the chilren DANCE down the field.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> I could have posted this response to the overstimulation 
>>> thread or the
>>>> parent-infant thread but chose this thread as the dialogue 
>>> which is
>>>> exploring zones and spaces of development and 
>> learning.  
>>> The notion of
>>>> development and learning WITHIN zones is pregnant with potential.
>>>> Larry
>>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>>> From: Ana Marjanovic-Shane 
>>>> Date: Tuesday, February 9, 2010 12:41 pm
>>>> Subject: [xmca] ZPD in a new light
>>>> To: Xmca 
>>>> 
>>>>> Dear all,
>>>>> 
>>>>> I would like to share some of my thoughts regarding 
>> Ferholt and
>>>>> Lecusay's paper: "Adult and Child Development in the Zoneof
>>>>> Proximal Development: Socratic Dialogue in a Playworld".
>>>>> 
>>>>> Ferholt’s and Lecusay’s paper introduces a new way of looking
>>>>> at Vygotsky’s concept of the Zone of Proximal Development 
>>> (ZO-
>>>>> PED), possibly transforming that concept into something rather
>>>>> new and different from the original one. It does it in three
>>>>> ways: It introduces a possibility that developmental
>>>>> transformations in social interactions between adults and
>>>>> children can happen not only to children, but to adults, too.
>>>>> Second, they focus not only on the cognitive changes, i.e.
>>>>> changes in understanding of certain concepts, logical arguments
>>>>> and/or situations, rather they introduce the analysis of the
>>>>> quality of the relationships in terms of caring and power
>>>>> distribution between the participants: from authoritative and
>>>>> asymmetrical to democratic and symmetrical power relations
>>>>> between adults and children. And finally they look at the
>>>>> extremely powerful transformations in the emotional ZPD 
>> that can
>>>>> lead to aesthetic and cathartic transformations of all the
>>>>> participants in the relationships to each other and to the event
>>>>> in which they all grappled with very hard interpersonal, logical
>>>>> and epistemological issues and were able to jointly build a
>>>>> novel, unexpected and gratifying solution.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Their paper truly poses new questions about the very 
>> concept of
>>>>> ZPD and the nature of development that takes place in the
>>>>> interaction between children and adults and between 
>> children and
>>>>> the wider culture. It also, through the vividness of the event
>>>>> they describe, breathes life back into our, sometimes too
>>>>> abstract and too decontextualized manipulations of units of
>>>>> analysis with which we build our conceptual systems.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Let me start with their idea that development happens to all
>>>>> the participants in the ZPD, including children and 
>> adults. It
>>>>> is very interesting to note the way Vygotsky described ZPD 
>>> in in
>>>>> two very different ways in his two articles: “Interaction
>>>>> between Learning and Development” and “The Role of Play in
>>>>> Development” — both published next to each other in the 
>> Mind and
>>>>> Society” In the “Leaning and Development” he develops the idea
>>>>> that ZPD is the “distance between the actual developmental level
>>>>> as determined by independent problem sol> > > and finished 
>> development] and the level of potential development
>>>>> as determined through problem solving under adult guidance 
>>> or in
>>>>> collaboration with more capable peers” [Ana: current learning
>>>>> and the “potential”, i.e. future development] (Vygotsky, 
>>> Mind in
>>>>> Society, 1978, page 86). And on page 88, he states: “human
>>>>> learning presupposes a specific social nature and a 
>> process by
>>>>> which children grow into the intellectual life of those around
>>>>> them.”
>>>>> In “The Role of Play in Development” Vygotsky defines ZPD as
>>>>> follows. I will give a little wider quote to situate it in his
>>>>> full context:
>>>>> “Looking at the matter from the opposite perspective [to the
>>>>> theories that consider play as the pure search for pleasure,
>>>>> that Vyg. critiques], could one suppose that a child’s behavior
>>>>> is always guided by meaning, that a preschooler’s behavior 
>>> is so
>>>>> arid that he never behaves spontaneously simply because he
>>>>> thinks he should behave otherwise? This strict 
>> subordination to
>>>>> rules is quite impossible in life, but in play it does become
>>>>> possible: thus play creates a zone of proximal development of
>>>>> the child. In play a child always behaves beyond his average
>>>>> age, above his daily behavior; in play it is as though he 
>>> were a
>>>>> head taller than himself. As in the focus of a magnifying glass,
>>>>> play contains all developmental tendencies in a condensed form
>>>>> and is itself a major source of development.
>>>>> Though the play-development relationship can be compared 
>> to the
>>>>> instruction-development relationship, play provides a much wider
>>>>> background for changes in needs and consciousness. Action 
>> in the
>>>>> imaginative sphere, in an imaginary situation, the 
>> creation of
>>>>> voluntary intentions, and the formation of real-life plans and
>>>>> volitional motives — all appear in play in the highest 
>> level of
>>>>> preschool development. The child moves forward essentially
>>>>> through play activity” (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 102-103).
>>>>> 
>>>>> In both instances, Vygotsky’s perspective focuses on an
>>>>> individual child’s relationship to abstract concepts
>>>>> (instructional settings) and to abstract rules of behavior in
>>>>> different imaginary (or future life) situations (play settings).
>>>>> What the child learns is given by the “adults” or “more capable
>>>>> peers”, and it pre-exists in the form of rules, values, and
>>>>> roles in the culture into which the child is growing.
>>>>> 
>>>>> However, although in both activities (instruction and play),
>>>>> the child is interacting with others, Vygotsky does not 
>>> focus on
>>>>> the nature of that interaction and the quality of the
>>>>> relationships in that interaction. The ZPD described like that,
>>>>> stays on the level of a drawing board, a plan for future
>>>>> research, and poses a big question rather than it 
>> answering it.
>>>>> 
>>>>> What Ferholt and Lecusay are doing in their study is to start
>>>>> to conceptualize some answers to the questions that Vygotsky
>>>>> posed in his descriptions of the ZPD. They took the notion from
>>>>> the realm of the abstract and admittedly rather sketchy concept
>>>>> and situated it in the real life moment to start looking 
>> at and
>>>>> understanding the very dynamic of the live interpersonal social
>>>>> relationships that happen both in guidance (instruction) 
>> and in
>>>>> play, and that are the setting of the learning and development.
>>>>> The main aspect of this relationship that they discuss is the
>>>>> relationship of power that contains both the ontological 
>> and the
>>>>> epistemological components: a) how the teacher-children
>>>>> relationship grows from a dominant (Magisterial dialogue) 
>> to a
>>>>> democratic one (Socratic Dialogue); and b) how this change in
>>>>> the interpersonal relationship, the willingness, so to 
>>> speak, of
>>>>> the teacher to LISTEN to to voices of the children and> > 
>>> equal power — leads to the creation of a new vision - both for
>>>>> the children and for the teacher!
>>>>> The ontological aspect of this situation shows that the
>>>>> transformations happening in the ZPD are transformations 
>> in the
>>>>> quality of the teacher-children relationship! And that means
>>>>> that ZPD has a potential to change the adults as well as the
>>>>> children. Therefore, on one hand, the children seem to be
>>>>> experiencing development at least as a progressive growth in
>>>>> their conceptualizations, language they use, ability to take
>>>>> into account multiple points of view and multiple feelings
>>>>> arising between themselves. On the other hand, the teacher was
>>>>> experiencing the development not only of his teaching and
>>>>> guiding strategies, but also of his understanding and accepting
>>>>> of the children as FULL human beings and not just"humans-
>> in-
>>>>> preparation”. This lead to his pedagogical orientations to be
>>>>> transformed from authoritative, teacher run philosophy to 
>> a more
>>>>> collaborative understanding of education, i.e. to the community
>>>>> of learners orientation.
>>>>> In that sense, Ferholt and Lecusay’s work is a step away from
>>>>> Vygotsky’s progressivist philosophy in which development 
>> is seen
>>>>> as having only one trajectory — a progress from less 
>> mature to
>>>>> more mature forms of behavior and thinking. (See Bakhurst,
>>>>> “Vygotsky’s demons”, 2007 in The Cambridge Companion 
>> toVygotsky).> > >
>>>>> Their study also poses many new questions. For instance, what
>>>>> is the quality of the ZPD, and can it exist at all, if 
>> there is
>>>>> no transformation of the interpersonal relationships and no
>>>>> transformations of the teachers? What is learned and in what
>>>>> ways can it lead to transformational development in more
>>>>> traditional settings in which the only authority belongs 
>> to the
>>>>> teacher?
>>>>> 
>>>>> The quality of the relationships in terms of the emotional
>>>>> transformations of all the participants and the sense of
>>>>> aesthetic catharsis are not less important issues, but I 
>>> want to
>>>>> leave them for another posting.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Ana
>> 
>> 
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